Al Gore Spends Millions Promoting Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton?

In Monday's Washington Post environmental reporter Juliet Eilperin wrote up a large article on Al Gore's latest climate heroics, headlined "Gore Launches Ambitious Advocacy Campaign on Climate." Gore has pledged to spend $300 million over 3 years "aimed at mobilizing Americans to push for aggressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, a move that ranks as one of the most ambitious and costly public advocacy campaigns in U.S. history."

Skeptics of catastrophic global warming theory do show up -- in paragraph 20. Before that, we learn Al Gore's putting together strange bedfellows: "One of its early ads will feature the unlikely alliance of clergymen Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton sitting on a couch on Virginia Beach, talking about their commitment to address climate change."

Eilperin also notes that John McCain is at least partially committed to Gore's global goals, and he also has the support of former Republican congressman Sherwood Boehlert. (She doesn't note Boehlert is the most liberal of Republicans and a Sierra Club favorite.)

In fact, Gore and his crusade are never labeled "liberal" by Eilperin, although at the very end, the Center for American Progress is described as "progressive." Conservative activists were also not labeled -- they were merely identified as doing the bidding of polluting donors:

The climate alliance's initiative, however, will not go unchallenged by climate change skeptics. Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a nonprofit funded by the coal industry and its allies, is spending about $35 million this election to bolster support for coal-generated electricity. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank that receives part of its funding from oil and gas companies, recently spent close to $35,000 to run a television ad both in the District and in scattered cities throughout the country attacking Gore, and plans a follow-up campaign. The ad argues that Gore and his allies in Hollywood use plenty of energy but that "Al Gore wants to cut our energy use, putting our jobs and our future in jeopardy."

Myron Ebell, who directs energy and global warming policy for CEI, said the fact that Gore feels compelled to run such an elaborate ad campaign highlights the extent to which his conservation message has failed to resonate with the American public. "He's spending a hundred million dollars to convince the American people to make sacrifices that he and his elite friends are not willing to make," Ebell said, adding that while many Americans may now blame humans for causing climate change, "the American people are not there with other alarmists" when it comes to supporting deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

For only getting two paragraphs in what is otherwise a press release for liberal environmentalism, at least Ebell made the most of it.

What's left out of the talk of big dollars being spent on paid ads -- paid in part by the Live Earth concerts, for example -- is how the major media has assisted Gore with all kinds of in-kind contributions of publicity. You would think NBC Universal would be cranky after reading this.